4/50 No one took the windmill maker altogether seriously, not even Ruth Armstrong, although she perhaps came nearest to doing so. Charles would drop in at the shop of a morning, in the interval between breakfast and bank opening, and, perching on a pile of stock, or the workbench, would discuss various things. He and Jed were alike in one characteristic--each had the habit of absent-mindedness and lapsing into silence in the middle of a conversation. Jed's lapses, of course, were likely to occur in the middle of a sentence, even in the middle of a word; with the younger man the symptoms were not so acute. He appeared to be somewhat reflective, even somber. |